s. 1“Architects of Peace, Sponsors of Death: The Anatomy of Selling Peace with Blood”
Yavuz KAYA
ABSTRACT
This article examines Donald J. Trump’s speech delivered at the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) on October 13, 2025, through the lenses of discourse analysis, ethical-political critique, and international law. The address, presented as a declaration of “the end of the Gaza War” and “the dawn of peace,” in fact rearticulated instruments of war, legitimized violence, and absolved perpetrators under the rhetoric of peace. Trump’s remarks — “Netanyahu asked me for weapons, some of which I didn’t even know by name” and “Prime Minister Netanyahu will be remembered as the architect of peace” — exemplify the contemporary mechanism of bloodwashing, in which rhetorical performance sanitizes moral and political culpability.
The article develops a three-dimensional framework:(i) Discursively, it explores how the concept of “peace” is semantically transformed into a veil for state violence; (ii) Morally, it reveals how denial of responsibility converts the perpetrator into a “peace figure”; (iii) Legally, it argues that such rhetoric erodes international norms by silencing civilian suffering and humanitarian devastation.
By commemorating only Israeli hostages and excluding Palestinian civilians, Trump’s speech constructs a unilateral narrative of victimhood and institutionalizes ethical asymmetry. The discourse turns peace into a marketable instrument of legitimacy rather than a moral or legal principle.
Ultimately, the study concludes that Trump’s October 13 address should not be read as a peace manifesto but as a performance of moral collapse — a rhetorical architecture in which the socalled “architects of peace” are, in fact, the sponsors of death.
Keywords: Trump, Netanyahu, Knesset, Peace Rhetoric, Bloodwashing, Discourse Analysis, International Law, Moral Legitimacy.
s. 2I. INTRODUCTION
On 13 October 2025, US President Donald J. Trump declared a new era in which, according to him, “the end of the Gaza War” and the “beginning of an era of peace.” Although the speech was presented in the international media as a “historic peace speech,” when examined in terms of content and context, it contains not so much peace itself as a rhetorical reconstruction aimed at legitimising violence and death.
Trump’s “Netanyahu asked me for weapons, some of which I didn’t even recognise” and “Prime Minister Netanyahu will be remembered by history as the architect of peace” are not merely political gestures; they represent a discursive turning point signifying the denial of moral responsibility and the justification of war through language (The Guardian, 2025; Associated Press, 2025).
This article approaches the speech in question not merely as a diplomatic statement, but as a political performance that reproduces the hegemonic discourse of peace in international relations. The discourse functions as a script designed to reconstruct political legitimacy, going beyond classical diplomatic language. In this respect, the study aims to show how the linguistic strategies presented as the “architecture of peace” have ‘sponsorship of death.’ The analysis proceeds within a three-dimensional framework: content, rhetoric, and ethics.
First, the conceptual structure of the speech will be examined using discourse analysis; the semantic functions of key expressions such as ‘peace,’ ‘victory,’ and ‘historic dawn’ will be evaluated. Next, the language of absence in the speech—namely, the systematic exclusion of Palestinians — will be analysed to reveal how ethical asymmetry is institutionalised discursively. Finally, the speech's meaning within the context of international law and political philosophy will be discussed; it will be argued that the ‘peace discourse’ formed around Trump and Netanyahu is, in fact, a symbolic reproduction of violence.
In this context, the fundamental hypothesis of the study is that the discourse of peace has become a political instrument of legitimacy rather than an ethical goal. Trump's performance in the Knesset is an example that reflects the characteristics of political communication in the ‘post-truth’ era, beyond classical diplomatic communication: perception has replaced truth, rhetoric has replaced responsibility, and image has replaced justice (Falk, 2017; Žižek, 2015). Therefore, this article approaches the 13 October 2025 speech not merely as a political event but as the anatomy of the ‘blood-cleansing rhetoric of peace’ in contemporary international politics, aiming to reveal the ethical, political, and humanitarian dimensions of this discourse.
s. 3II. OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC CONTEXT OF THE SPEECH
Donald J. Trump's speech at the Knesset on 13 October 2025 should be regarded not merely as a diplomatic gesture, but as an attempt to both reproduce the historical continuity of US–Israel relations and reframe the political consequences of the Gaza War. The timing of the speech was highly strategic in terms of both domestic politics and regional dynamics: it took place at a time when the election atmosphere in the US was being reshaped and the post-war government crisis in Israel was deepening. Therefore, the rhetoric is not merely a call for peace; it also serves the function of producing political legitimacy (Reuters, 2025; Haaretz, 2025).
1. The Post-Gaza War Environment: Rhetoric of Peace or Quest for Legitimacy?
The attacks on Gaza, which began on 7 October 2023 and continued for two years, led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the modern era. According to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, 2024) , by the time of Trump's speech to the Knesset, more than 65,000 civilians had lost their lives in Gaza, more than 165,000 had been injured, and 80% of the infrastructure had been rendered unusable. Despite this picture, Trump's speech only emphasised the return of Israeli hostages as a ‘symbol of peace’; he made no mention whatsoever of the deaths of Palestinian civilians, children, health workers or UN personnel. This rhetorical absence is a conscious product of ethical asymmetry and political selectivity. Establishing peace solely on the basis of ‘unilateral victimhood’ actually means reproducing the war at the semantic level. This situation coincides with Chomsky's (1991) concept of ‘manufacturing consent’: those in power strategically use language to both legitimise their own actions and erase the visibility of the victim.
2. The Trump–Netanyahu Alliance: A Cycle of Mutual Legitimacy
Trump's speech at the Knesset revealed not only the US foreign policy strategy towards Israel, but also the personal-political alliance between the two leaders. While Netanyahu faced serious criticism at the national level due to allegations of corruption and war crimes, Trump's description of him as the ‘architect of peace’ constitutes a kind of discursive whitewashing operation. This whitewashing is not merely personal; it operates on the basis of an inter-state strategic partnership. From Trump's perspective, such rhetoric offers both an opportunity to reestablish the US's lost moral authority in the region and to strengthen his own image as a ‘peacebrokering leader’ (Time, 2025). Therefore, the rhetorical harmony between the two leaders functions as a mutual exchange of political salvation: Netanyahu seeks to escape the destruction of war, while Trump seeks to escape international isolation. In both cases, the discourse of ‘peace’ serves as a kind of political cosmetic, covering the blood with a glossy diplomatic veneer.
s. 43. US Strategic Calculations in the Region
With his Knesset speech, the Trump administration has redefined the classic ‘balance of power’ policy in the Middle East. The speech text contained explicit threats against Iran (‘Stop supporting terrorism, stop threatening your neighbours’) and indirect pressure on Palestine (‘Anyone who wants peace in the New Middle East must recognise Israel's existence’) (The Guardian, 2025). These statements clearly show that the concept of ‘peace’ is used not as a diplomatic, but as a military -ideological tool. Furthermore, the advanced weapons systems provided by the US to Israel — F-35 blocks, bunker-buster munitions, and long-range surveillance drones — were presented in the speech as ‘defence support’ (Military.com, 2025). Yet these technologies are one of the direct causes of destruction and civilian casualties on the ground. Trump's statement that he ‘didn't even know the names of some of the weapons’ is a deliberate strategy to obscure this ethical responsibility; it breaks the chain of responsibility through language.
4. Media Framing and Global Reactions
The international media interpreted the speech along two different axes. Western-centric press (e.g., Reuters, CBS News, ABC) presented the speech as a “historic step towards peace,” while Arab and independent media outlets (e.g., Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye) characterised this narrative as “post-genocide legitimacy production.” This dual approach is one of the most typical examples of “post-truth diplomacy” (Finkelstein, 2018): it is not information, narrative that is decisive. Consequently, the Knesset speech has become a war of words not only through its content but also through the media ecosystem in which it circulates.
In conclusion, the political and diplomatic grounding of Trump's Knesset speech is built upon the repackaging of moral responsibility through rhetorical tools. This text, presented as a call for peace, is in fact a performance aimed at rebuilding both Netanyahu's and Trump's political legitimacy. In this context, the next section will examine in detail the internal structure of the speech, namely the metaphors, symbolic language and ‘strategies of erasure’ used.
III. THE RHETORICAL ANATOMY OF THE SPEECH
Trump's speech at the Knesset is, rather than a classic diplomatic address, a political performance designed with rhetorical engineering. The text carries the qualities of both a ‘declaration of victory’ and a ‘purification ritual’: violence, destruction and death are aestheticised with words such as ‘peace’, “dawn” and ‘rebirth’. Therefore, the speech should be examined not only in terms of content but also in terms of the linguistic and symbolic strategies it employs.
s. 51. ‘I Didn't Even Know the Names of Some Weapons’: The Rhetoric of Ethical Escape
The most resonant sentence of the speech is Trump's "Netanyahu asked me for some weapons systems; systems that I didn't even know the names of" (Military.com, 2025).
This statement implies the suspension of ethical responsibility through language. With this sentence, Trump represents both absolute power and absolute ignorance at the same time. This paradoxical position—a figure who wields power but is not responsible for the consequences—is the fundamental crisis of modern political communication (Arendt, 1963). This discourse employs a strategy known as “plausible deniability”: the decision-maker shirks ethical responsibility by implying they were unaware of the consequences. However, under the laws of war, deaths caused through aid and arms transfers fall under indirect responsibility (Rome Statute, 1998, Article 25). Therefore, Trump's statement is not merely a rhetorical escape; it is also an attempt to render moral responsibility invisible at the level of international law.
This statement reinforces the image of the ‘helping father’ for the listener, while concealing the ‘supplier of deadly systems’ at the content level. In this way, Trump shifts from being an accomplice to war to assuming the role of ‘facilitator of peace.’ Thus, violence is rebranded with the label of ‘help’ — a typical example of bloodwashing.
2. ‘Netanyahu is the Architect of Peace’: Acquittal of the Perpetrator and Dearchitecturing of the Crime
Trump's statement that ‘Prime Minister Netanyahu will be remembered by history as the architect of peace’ (The Guardian, 2025) is the most explicit legitimacy production sentence in the speech. This declaration serves a threefold function, both historically and morally: (i) Reframing the perpetrator: Netanyahu is no longer a war leader but a peace designer. (ii) The historical rewriting of responsibility: deaths, destruction, and bombings are now justified as having been carried out “in the name of peace.”
(iii) The invisibilisation of the victim: Palestinian civilian deaths are now categorised as “necessary losses” within this new narrative.
Such rhetorical transformations are referred to in international relations literature as ‘moral inversion’ (Baudrillard, 1991; Falk, 2017). Here, morality is inverted in favour of the perpetrator: the criminal act is transformed into an ethical gesture. Presenting Netanyahu as the ‘architect of peace’ both compensates for the leadership crisis in Israel's domestic public sphere and provides a ‘moral grounding’ for the US's regional strategy. Yet, during the same period, reports from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC, 2025) documented that the Israeli army targeted hospitals, schools, and aid convoys in Gaza. Consequently, this rhetoric becomes an ethical parody of reality: the ‘architect of peace’ is actually the ‘sponsor of death.’
s. 63. ‘Not the End of This War, but the End of the Age of Terror’: Messianic Peace Discourse
Another phrase frequently used in Trump's speech is ‘This is not just the end of a war, but the end of an age of terror and death’ (Time, 2025). This rhetoric produces a religious-messianic narrative rather than political reality. Peace is no longer a political goal; it is presented as the ‘fulfilment of divine destiny.’ Such metaphorical language turns political violence into a means to a sacred end. Thus, the dead are transformed into ‘figures contributing’ to the historical mission of the killer. Trump's rhetoric consciously invokes the theological references (e.g., ‘God's promise,’ ‘holy lands’) of the Evangelical base and pro-Israel lobby groups. This signifies the neutralisation of consciences through the religiousisation of political discourse (Girard, 1972).
On this rhetorical plane, ‘peace’ is no longer a human process, but a victory narrative legitimised by divine authority. Consequently, the semantics of the speech become less about politics and more of a dogmatic purification ritual.
4. ‘The Historic Dawn of the New Middle East’: The Aestheticisation of Violence
At the end of his speech, Trump uses a kind of “birth” metaphor, stating, ‘Today we are witnessing the historic dawn of the new Middle East’ (ABC7NY, 2025). This metaphor transforms the destruction wrought by war into a narrative of ‘rebirth.’ Dawn represents both the end and the beginning; thus, death and life merge within the same symbolic framework. This is the aestheticisation of violence: destruction is presented through the metaphor of beauty; pain is masked by the rhetoric of hope. Benjamin's (1936) concept of ‘aestheticised politics’ precisely describes this situation: modern powers legitimise violence through aesthetic language, rendering it unquestionable.
In this context, the phrase ‘historic dawn’ is not merely a metaphor for hope; it is the visual whitewashing of blood through a narrative of rebirth. The fact that Palestinian dead, destroyed neighbourhoods, and demolished infrastructure are not mentioned in this ‘dawn’ shows that the light is only shining on one side. Thus, language serves an ethical function of selection: who is human and who is ‘no longer’ is determined within the boundaries of discourse.
5. ‘We Ended the War’: Marketing the Truth
In his speech, Trump stated, ‘We have ended the war. Now we are starting peace’ (AP News, 2025). However, numerous independent reports document that the conflict in Gaza has merely changed form, with the blockade and restrictions on humanitarian aid continuing and civilians still being displaced (UN OCHA, 2025). This rhetoric positions the concept of “peace” as a marketable product: a finished war transforms into a sellable peace. At this point, Chomsky’s
s. 7concept of “manufacturing consent” regains meaning: the masses are surrounded by symbolic images designed to convince them that peace has truly arrived.
In reality, however, the word ‘peace’ has become a linguistic cosmetic covering up death.
Such statements offer both a moral victory to the domestic public and a ‘success story’ to the international community. But declaring that the war is over does not end the war; the war continues in discourse.
And in this speech, every instance of the word ‘peace’ is actually a linguistic reproduction of war.
Conclusion: The Anatomy of Discourse, an Ethical Autopsy
The linguistic anatomy of the Knesset speech reveals a structure in which truth is systematically aestheticised and guilt is semantically erased. Words such as ‘weapon,’ ‘peace,’ ‘dawn,’ ‘victory,’ and ‘architecture’ become embellished organs of political violence. This language is constructed to exonerate the killer and silence the victim. Trump's Knesset speech is therefore not merely a ‘peace manifesto’; it is a linguistic autopsy of war.
IV. THE INVISIBLE: TALKING ONLY ABOUT ISRAELI HOSTAGES, IGNORING PALESTINIANS
The most important aspect of Donald Trump's speech to the Knesset on 13 October 2025 is not only what was said, but what was not said. Throughout his speech, Trump spoke of the release of hostages, the trauma experienced by Israeli families, and the resilience of the Israeli people, ‘victims of terrorism’; yet he made no mention of the suffering of Palestinian civilians, the rubble of destroyed cities, or the names of the children who died. This absence is not simple forgetfulness, but a systematic strategy of discursive exclusion. Because in international relations, silence is not neutrality; it is the selective empathy of power (Butler, 2009).
1. Selective Empathy: Who Can Be Remembered, Who Must Remain Silent?
Trump's speech draws a symbolic line between those ‘entitled to suffer’ and those ‘condemned to silence.’ Israeli hostages are glorified as ‘rescued innocents’; there are sentences, thanks, and applause dedicated to them. Yet, during the same period in Gaza, according to UN data (OCHA, 2025), 38,000 civilians lost their lives, 16,000 of whom were children. These deaths are not mentioned even once in the speech. This situation aligns perfectly with Judith Butler's concept of ‘grievable lives’: Western-centric political discourse codes some deaths as mournable, while others are dismissed as statistical noise. Trump's silence is the most striking example of this grief-politics system.
s. 8This selectivity also establishes a moral hierarchy: Israeli hostages are ‘worth rescuing,’ while Palestinian civilians are ‘a natural side effect of war.’ Thus, human suffering is graded on the basis of political affiliation; this is one of the most dangerous pathologies of modern politics (Agamben, 1998).
2. The Political Function of Silence: The Ideological Weight of Absence
In discourse analysis, the concept of ‘absence’ is one of the most powerful structural elements of a text (Fairclough, 1995). Trump's failure to mention Palestine in his speech is not a sign of neutrality, but a conscious ideological choice: talking about Palestinian deaths weakens Israel's ‘defensive war’ thesis; talking about the destruction in Gaza undermines the claim for peace. Silence, therefore, is the shield of legitimacy for this narrative. This is a contemporary example of the concept of ‘silenced histories’ as defined by Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1995): while the powerful loudly narrate their own history, the stories of the victims are drowned out in silence.
In the Knesset speech, the phrase ‘hostages are returning home’ appeared 11 times, while the word “Gaza” was used only twice, and then in the sense of ‘stronghold of terrorist organisations’ (Time, 2025).
This lexical distribution reflects a deliberate economy of visibility: Israel is at the centre of the narrative, surrounded by an undefined, silent void. Palestine appears in this narrative solely as a ‘threat’; it is not the victim, but the obstacle. This situation updates Edward Said's (1981) definition of “Orientalism”: Eastern peoples are no longer exotic, but positioned as ‘obstacles to legitimacy’.
3. Hostage Rhetoric: The Monopolisation of Victimhood
The language constructed around hostages serves not only a humanitarian theme but also a political strategy. Trump defines the hostages as ‘heroes of the Israeli people,’ glorifying them as ‘those who paid the price for peace.’ This language means monopolising victimhood: all the pain of war is placed in the memory of one side. This form of discourse creates emotional mobilisation in the international public sphere, but this mobilisation is based on one-sided empathy.
The mourning of Palestinian mothers for their children finds no place in this narrative; because ‘mourning’ is only the ‘right of civilised nations’ (Butler, 2016).
This framework erases the symmetry of the humanitarian catastrophe. The one-sided representation of victimhood also conceals the aggressor's responsibility. Netanyahu's proclamation as the ‘architect of peace’ further reinforces this emotional monopoly: the perpetrator's emotional representation takes the place of the victim.
s. 94. Media and Global Perception: The Multiplication of Silence
International media discourse has also reproduced this silence. Headlines in Western media following the speech, such as “Historic dawn for peace” (ABC News, 2025) and “Trump delivers a message of hope” (Reuters, 2025), supported the narrative of peace, yet none mentioned Palestinian losses. In contrast, the Arab press and independent sources (Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Anadolu Agency) characterised the speech as a ‘post-genocide legitimacy ceremony’.
This distinction shows that what is happening is not a battle of information but a battle of narratives. The media arena, like politics, has become a front in the ‘war of visibility’.
In this context, the invisibility of Palestinians is not only political; it is a cultural phenomenon.
The word ‘peace’ carries news value only as long as it functions in the way the West understands it. Gaza's dead are framed as ‘the inevitable price on the road to peace.’ This is the completion, through the media, of what Hannah Arendt (1963) called the **‘banality of violence.’**
5. Ethical and Legal Consequences: The Complicity of Silence
From the perspective of international law, a leader's systematic avoidance of mentioning civilian deaths in their speech produces a symbolic but meaningful result: responsibility is redrawn at the boundaries of language. Not mentioning Palestine also erases the political existence of the violence experienced by that people.
This is a tragic example of Jean Baudrillard's (1991) concept of ‘simulation’: there is now ‘peace’ but no ‘justice’; there is “speech” but no ‘truth’.
Furthermore, the concept of ‘crimes against humanity’ as defined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute is related not only to the acts themselves but also to the denial or aestheticisation of these acts. Trump's silence is the political representation of this denial at a symbolic level. Silence is not a sign of innocence, but of complicity in crime. If peace replaces justice, it is no longer an ethical value, but a tool of political propaganda.
Conclusion: The Sound of Silence
Trump's Knesset speech empties peace of its meaning by speaking of ‘peace’ without even mentioning the Palestinians. This is not a linguistic but a moral collapse of peace. The hostages may have been rescued, but the truth remains captive. The unseen face of the discourse echoes in
s. 10the silence of the Palestinian people. And this silence will one day speak louder than all the applause.
V. MORAL DECLINE IN RHETORIC AND THE BLOODWASHING MECHANISM
‘Bloodwashing’, i.e. the rhetorical cleansing of blood, is a concept increasingly discussed in modern political literature. First used in media and war ethics studies (Kleinman, 2010; Finkelstein, 2018), this term describes the discursive whitewashing processes that follow physical violence.
States or leaders whitewash the moral burden created by their actions through language: death becomes ‘victory’; destruction becomes “rebirth”; crime becomes ‘the price of peace’. Trump's 13 October 2025 Knesset speech is
is almost a laboratory example of this mechanism.
1. The Rhetorical Justification of Blood: Definition and Functioning
Bloodwashing is a symbolic narrative of rebirth used after war crimes or mass violence. Perpetrators produce moral legitimacy by placing the crime within an ethical framework without denying it. This strategy has four stages:
1. Renaming the Action Renaming the Act: Violence is presented using neutral terms such as ‘defence,’ ‘preventive operation,’ or ‘peace mission.’ 2. Invisibilisation of the Victim: The dead and victims are either abstracted through statistical expressions (‘casualties,’ ‘collateral damage’) or excluded entirely. 3. Glorification of the Perpetrator: The actor of the war is repositioned with epithets such as ‘architect of peace’ or ‘courageous leader’. 4. Creation of a New Moral Framework: The crime is reinterpreted with the claim that it ‘serves a greater good’.
In the Trump–Netanyahu axis, these four stages permeate the entire fabric of the discourse.
The statement ‘I didn't even know the names of the weapons’ severes the link between knowledge and responsibility; the declaration that ‘Netanyahu is the architect of peace’ is the glorification of the perpetrator; and the metaphor ‘this historic dawn’ is the presentation of death as rebirth.
s. 112. Moral Inversion
Jean Baudrillard (1991) states that modern wars are ‘conducted through images’; it is no longer war that is managed, but the aesthetics of war. Trump's Knesset speech confirms this thesis: language takes the place of actions; responsibility is absolved by words.
At this point, a moral inversion occurs: killing becomes ‘serving peace,’ destruction becomes ‘rebuilding,’ punishment becomes ‘justice.’ The legal responsibility for war crimes is transformed into an ethical gesture under the guise of a ‘peace mission.’
Walter Benjamin's (1936) concept of ‘aestheticised politics’ also explains this situation.
In the Knesset speech, peace is reduced not to a sentiment, but to a stage effect.
Trump's theatrical gestures, dramatic emphases, and constantly applause-seeking intonation transform his discourse into a kind of political spectacle. In this spectacle, the audience—both Knesset members and the media, as well as the global public—is now seeking not truth, but emotional satisfaction.
3. Bloodwashing and International Law: Rhetoric or Reframing the Crime?
Article 25 of the Rome Statute clearly defines the concept of ‘aiding and abetting’:
A leader or state that knowingly supports another state's war crimes is considered an international crime. Trump's presentation of the weapons and intelligence support he provided to Israel as ‘tools serving peace’ is not a legal but a symbolic attempt at exoneration. Such rhetoric does not directly give rise to criminal liability under international law; however, it leads to the semantic redrawing of the crime in collective memory (Cassese, 2003) .
In this context, bloodwashing is not merely a linguistic phenomenon; it is the name of a grey area in international law. The perpetrator's aestheticisation of the crime through rhetoric undermines both the value of justice and that of testimony.
This is because testimony in international criminal law often operates through ‘narrative.’ If the narrative is manipulated, justice is also manipulated. Trump's statement that ‘we ended the war’ produces a ‘legal illusion’ in this sense: the declaration of peace verbally erases the fact that the war continues.
4. Religious Legitimacy and the Theology of Peace
Bloodwashing is not only a political process; it is also a theological mechanism.
s. 12The references to God in Trump's speech, the metaphors of the ‘rebirth of the holy land’ and the ‘historic dawn,’ serve to present peace as a sacred atonement. This evokes the ‘scapegoat mechanism’ defined by Girard (1972): society chooses a symbolic scapegoat to make itself forget its own violence. In this case, the Palestinian people are both the sacrifice and the silent witness.
Trump and Netanyahu, meanwhile, are ‘purifying figures’ — saviours who take the place of the guilty. In this context, peace is no longer a moral goal, but a ritual completion. The sanctified leader is beyond criticism, because criticism is coded as blasphemy against the sacred. This creates a theological armour of immunity for political discourse.
5. The Gap Between Propaganda and Ethics
The most dangerous aspect of bloodwashing is that it erases the line between propaganda and ethics.
Propaganda is normally a tool of persuasion; however, here it takes on the function of moral reframing. Trump's speech is designed to instil in the listener the feeling that ‘good has prevailed.’ Ethically, however, this ‘goodness’ is solely the victor's perspective. The absence of the Palestinian victims renders this goodness morally void. Because ethics is not only the story of the victor; but also the loser's story (Levinas, 1969).
In this context, Trump's speech is not merely political; it is an ethical simulation.
A symbolic show of reconciliation has replaced real peace. The actual violence of war has given way to the silent violence of words. Therefore, the Knesset speech will be recorded not in international legal texts but in the conscience archives of humanity as a ‘bloodwashing protocol’.
6. The Anatomy of Moral Decay
Ultimately, the Trump–Netanyahu discourse reveals the most dangerous disease of modern politics:
the systematic destruction of ethical sensibility for political gain. This situation also aligns with Hannah Arendt's concept of the ‘banality of evil’ (Arendt, 1963).
Evil no longer shouts; it is applauded. The language of war mixes with the language of peace; blood is justified with words.
s. 13And this justification process, like a cleansing ritual, appears whiter with each repetition. But that whiteness is not the colour of conscience, but the colour of oblivion.
VI. CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF PEACE BUILT ON BLOOD
Trump's speech at the Knesset on 13 October 2025 will take its place in the political communication history of the 21st century not only as a ‘declaration of peace’ but also as a document of the transformation of truth and morality. This speech demonstrated that language is no longer merely a vehicle for meaning but a mechanism for transforming crime. Discourse has replaced action; rhetoric has become a veil covering responsibility. In this context, Trump's speech marks a new turning point in the historical journey of the concept of peace: peace has been emptied of its meaning, its ethical significance filled with blood.
1. The Semantic Emptying of Peace
Peace is traditionally thought of in conjunction with the principles of justice, equality and compromise. However, in the Knesset speech, peace has been reduced to a discourse pattern stripped of these fundamental elements.
In Trump's discourse, peace means not ‘the end of conflict’ but ‘the invisibility of conflict’. This situation is, in Chomsky's (1991) words, the final stage of ‘manufacturing consent’: people are led to believe that peace has come in a world where war continues. Therefore, the Knesset speech symbolises an era in which the historical meaning of the word ‘peace’ has been eroded.
The complete absence of any mention of Palestinian civilians, children, women, and the elderly has entirely eliminated the ethical dimension of peace. This silence is more than a political strategy; it is a sign of moral collapse. Peace has become a metaphor that covers up injustice.
2. The Normalisation of Rhetorical Immorality
Trump's statements that ‘Netanyahu is the architect of peace’ and ‘we ended the war’ represent an era in which rhetorical immorality has become normalised. This discourse does not deny reality; it replaces it with a more beautiful lie. This is a post-modern version of Hannah Arendt's (1963) concept of ‘the banality of evil’: war no longer shouts, it is applauded; violence is no longer hidden, it is aestheticised.
Netanyahu being called a ‘architect of peace’ is a new way for perpetrators to evade responsibility. Such rhetoric erases the traces of historically committed crimes with ‘linguistic make-up’.
And this act of erasure poisons not only the past, but also the memory of the future. Because every crime that is forgotten is ready to be committed again.
s. 143. The Separation of Law and Conscience
The Knesset speech also sets a dangerous precedent in terms of international law.
The Rome Statute evaluates war crimes not only at the level of the act itself, but also at the level of intention and propaganda. A leader's glorification of the perpetrator while ignoring mass civilian deaths, while not directly prosecutable under the law, blurs the lines of responsibility. This blurring is the grey area of modern politics: it is not the crime itself but its narrative that is managed. In this context, Trump's Knesset speech is not a legal text but a semantic reproduction of the crime. The discourse of peace transcends legal language and relies on the ‘silence of conscience.’ This situation is indicative of an era in which ethics and law are completely disconnected.
4. The Post-Bloodwashing Era: The Institutionalisation of Forgetting
The Knesset speech proves that ‘bloodwashing’ has become not merely a communication technique, but an institutional form of governance. The discourse that follows the war is no longer designed to account for actions, but to manage forgetting. This strategy represents a trend not only in the Israeli-Palestinian context but on a global scale: truth is repackaged through media strategies; justice is postponed under the guise of ‘compromise.’
This situation is the reversal of the ‘humanitarian intervention’ doctrines of the late 20th century. We are now in an era of legitimacy-based intervention:
leaders shed blood; then claim to build peace over that same blood. This cycle empties the concept of ‘human dignity,’ which forms the foundation of the international order.
5. Historical Assessment: The Lasting Traces of the Knesset Speech
History will most likely remember Trump's Knesset speech not as a ‘call for peace’ but as a document of moral simulation. This speech is a laboratory for international politics in the post2020 era: image has replaced truth, rhetoric has replaced justice, performance has replaced conscience. Trump and Netanyahu's shared rhetoric is a death architecture presented as the ‘architecture of peace.’ The rhetoric of peace has replaced justice; and this is one of history's quietest but deadliest blows.
If peace has become a marketing tool to cover up blood; if the voice of the victim has been sacrificed to the applause of the perpetrator; if truth has been lost in the shadow of political interests, then that peace is merely the decoration of a moral wreckage.
s. 156. Final Word: The Testimony of Silence
Trump's speech at the Knesset is not merely a diplomatic spectacle; it is a stark example of how the concept of ‘peace’ has been commodified on the political stage of the 21st century. The socalled ‘architects of peace’ are, in fact, the same actors who have established the chain of sponsorship for war. This speech is a historical showcase demonstrating that peace can now be marketed as a product rather than a goal; that even blood can be transformed into geopolitical capital.
Trump's statement that ‘the war is over’ is a lie that echoes in the absence of justice, in a geography where war is still being waged. This call for ‘peace,’ made while thousands of children in Gaza remain under the rubble, hundreds of thousands of people are homeless, and millions face hunger and deprivation, is the moral pinnacle of double standards in international politics. Here, there is a rhetoric that constructs silence, not peace; consent, not justice.
The ‘architects of peace’ no longer sit at the negotiating table, but on the boards of arms manufacturers. In their lexicon, “peace” means the security of energy corridors, the continuity of trade routes, and the minimisation of investment risks. In this order, ‘death’ is not merely a side effect; it is the system itself. Because blood is the most profitable currency of this new order.
Therefore, Trump's Knesset speech shows how the word ‘peace’ has been emptied of meaning, how “justice” has been turned into a commercial risk, and how ‘humanity’ has been reduced to a marketing strategy. This speech is a mirror not only of a politician but of an era: an era where the architects of peace and the sponsors of death are applauded from the same podium.
Ultimately, the most fundamental conclusion of this article is this:
Peace is only possible not through the silencing of weapons, but through the establishment of justice, equality, and human dignity. Any situation labelled ‘peace’ in the absence of justice is, in fact, merely a new form of oppression. Therefore, an unjust peace is not peace at all, but a systematic lie.
The true architects of peace will rise where consciences, not signatures, are cast. Until that day, ‘peace bought with blood’ will remain humanity's most costly lie.
s. 16References
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503609289 Amnesty International. (2024). Starvation and Siege: Israel’s Collective Punishment of Gaza. London: Author. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004466045 Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Viking Press. Baudrillard, J. (1991). The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Power Publications. BBC World. (2025, October 14). Trump’s speech sparks controversy over Gaza remarks. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-67211145 Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Schocken. Butler, J. (2009). Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472542222 Cassese, A. (2003). International Criminal Law. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259377.001.0001 Chomsky, N. (1991). Deterring Democracy. Verso. Chouliaraki, L. (2006). The Spectatorship of Suffering. Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446212383 Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Longman. Falk, R. (2017). Power Shift: On the New Global Order. Zed Books. Finkelstein, N. (2018). Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv7r412m Girard, R. (1972). Violence and the Sacred. Johns Hopkins University Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1564.001.0001 Haaretz. (2025, October 14). Trump praises Netanyahu in Knesset: “A man of peace and strength.” https://www.haaretz.com Human Rights Watch. (2024). Gaza Under Fire: Civilian Casualties and War Crimes Analysis. New York: Author. https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_HRDOCS-8121 Ignatieff, M. (1998). The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience. Henry Holt. International Criminal Court (ICC). (1998). Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Hague: ICC. International Law Commission. (2020). Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. United Nations. Kleinman, A. (2010). Moral Wounds and the Politics of Healing. Harvard University Press. Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Duquesne University Press. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262631594.001.0001 Middle East Eye. (2025, October 14). From blood to peace: Trump’s Knesset address sparks outrage in Arab world. https://www.middleeasteye.net Nye, J. S. (2004). Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Public Affairs.
s. 17Reuters. (2025, October 13). Trump salutes mega donor Miriam Adelson for help shaping US decisions on Israel. https://www.reuters.com Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Yale University Press. Said, E. W. (1981). Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. Pantheon Books. Schmitt, C. (2007). The Concept of the Political. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226738840.001.0001 Shklar, J. (1984). Ordinary Vices. Harvard University Press. The Guardian. (2025, October 13). Trump sets sights on peace with Iran as he hails “end of Gaza war.” https://www.theguardian.com Time Magazine. (2025, October 14). Trump’s speech in Knesset marks a new dawn—or a new illusion. https://time.com Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press. UN OCHA. (2025). Situation Report: Gaza Humanitarian Update. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. UNHRC. (2025). Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Geneva: United Nations. Žižek, S. (2015). Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. Picador. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262240543.001.0001
